I haven’t been to the gym in a couple of weeks due to the aforementioned health crisis, save for last Sunday when I met Jose. I’ll sum that up by saying a blood test proved me right and my doctor wrong - my dosage of medication was off. I didn’t need Cymbalta, as suggested by my doctor, who diagnosed me as “moderately depressed” based on a short multiple-choice test. And I don’t recommend taking that medication unless you are in desperate need of a case of chronic narcolepsy.
I suppose my absence from the gym concerned my stalker, who called me tonight at 10:30. I gave him my number back when I thought he was cool, but have yet to answer when he calls. This was the third time. It’s all getting to be too much for me. It was fun at first, but now I have The Wiggins. I’m not complaining that someone is approaching relentless in his pursuit of me, but it’s a closet-case who trolls around at the gym. There’s a small society of said trolls there and I do not wish to be inducted into their shame.
The popular opinion of the gym is that it is not the place to be looking for a date, and only a hookup if you are, in fact, a troll. Personally I don’t see anything wrong with someone asking me out in said location or just being flirty in general. Maybe, Jose, for instance? But now I’m dreading going back and I don’t want to switch.
Balls.
Spotted today: Tattoo of two words in the shape of a cross on a guy’s leg: vertically - “WHITE,” horizontally - “PRIDE.” Bumper sticker on the back of a giant Ford SUV: “NOBAMA / Say no to socialism in 2008.” Fun times.
The weirdest, dumbest thing happened to me last Monday. I’ve been reluctant to write about it because it’s so dumb.
I left the gym and drove across the street to a sporting goods store to browse kayaks (why? I can’t fit one in my car, definitely not on it). As I walked down the main aisle, I passed a mid-30’s white man with his two young boys sitting at a patio display. I couldn’t have picked him out of a lineup - the only detail that caught my eye was his jaw packed with tobacco. “Gross.” The man looked at his wife who was standing nearby and commented that I had a tattoo on my leg. He told her, “you should get one that says ‘666′.”
I paused, looked back for a second, and decided to keep moving. “What a random, stupid, pointless, ignorant thing to say.” But if I got upset at every redneck with a mouthful of Copenhagen, I would have died from heart failure a long time ago. I decided to make an effort to avoid the whole family.
I perused for a few minutes checking for some things, passing them in the distance a few times, until I decided to go pee and then leave. As I was leaving the restroom, I walked down a side aisle and serendipitously ended up at the main at the same time as the Redneck on the parallel aisle. “Thank God I’m leaving.” I passed him and went on my way. But I didn’t get more than a few feet away before I heard his wife say to him, “we’re done here, where are we going now?” And he loudly proclaimed at the top of his voice, “we’re gonna follow this guy since he’s been following US!”
That’d be me. And I was not.
He walked towards me and stayed no more than 12 inches behind me. I never looked back but I could hear his footsteps. His kids followed and I heard “c’mon boys, I want you to see this.” Unfortunately this continued all around the store, and the place is big. As we approached the busy registers, he stopped, but repeatedly screamed at me to wait outside for him. “Two minutes, buddy! Gimme two minutes and I’ll come out there and we’ll take care of this!” Again, I didn’t look back.
I felt safer once I got outside, but I’m not much of a fighter. Or if I am, I wouldn’t know since I’ve never been in one. I’ve never fought back. I got in my car and was backing out of my parking spot when I saw him in my rear view mirror walking towards me with his young two boys at his side. He was screaming all kinds of obscene things, but the only word I was sure I heard was “faggot.” Er, “FAGGOT!!1!!1!”
So I drove off. On the way home, a truck stayed behind me for more than a few turns and I was afraid it was him following me. I was afraid, but it was much later that night when I realized how scared I actually was. It was really dark and I was getting something out of my car and a stray puppy had wandered up behind me and barked. It wanted to play. I really think I almost had a heart attack. You know that feeling when something scares you and it’s like you can feel a fracture in every nerve cell of your body? Your aura shatters into a million pieces? That, only worse.
I’m still upset that this happened. Upset that he’s a redneck, that he’s teaching this to his boys, that he’s probably going to take this out on his wife, that she lacks the intelligence and self-esteem to stand up to him. But as dumb as it sounds, I’m more upset that I didn’t turn around. [Sob story] As a child I was beaten up, abused, had rocks thrown at me, things like that on a daily basis. Mostly, I let go of all that. I told myself a few years ago that it’s ridiculous to hold grudges against people for things they did when they were children.
Or in my case, things they didn’t do.
But the more I see adults act like children, the more I start to believe I was wrong.
Anxiety. Sexually charged post. The gangster stalker finally came out and asked me for my number and I gave it to him. I told him I was busy tonight - I’m not - but he called anyway and I didn’t answer. I’m just not sure how this first conversation is supposed to go; doesn’t he know that sexual innuendo is best left to texting? It should go like this.
” do u like the cock?”
“yes, luv the cock, very homo, read my blog”
“want sck ur cock?”
“sure, sck it is good”
“u sck mine 2″
“duh”
“fck u n ass? hard?”
“i dunno bout all that. if 2 big, sck is all, sry kthx”
I prefer that. Then I can stop being coy and staying naked for a long period of time while I change so he can stare at my junk. And he does - every single time. I found out today that he’s 23. I’m not sure if I revealed this in the earlier post and I’m too lazy to look, but he has a girlfriend and a kid, too. And if he wasn’t outrageously cute, I wouldn’t even be discussing this. But who am I to deny myself of him, or better yet, him of me? This is so DARKsided.
Hit me with your moral judgments, though I’m not sure they’ll have any effect.
And if I was any more upset I would be vomiting profusely. So much for “rewarding” myself. I guess I’ll post pictures when I feel like I don’t want to kill someone over it. I am going to go cry myself to sleep.
Update: I’m too upset to sleep. My digital camera’s batteries are dead so you’re going to have to settle for my phone’s camera. The first picture is the stencil we started with. I loved it. Originally I just wanted the two fish, but he had this idea to add the ripples at the top and he told me they would only be a little light shading. As you can see in the stencil, I thought it fit quite nicely. Photo two is the black fish and some ripples… the black fish is outstanding… I was impressed. I was a little concerned about the “ripples” but I was so happy with the fish that I trusted him, and besides, it looked like that was the extent of it. I laid my head back for a while because the pain got to be a little intense; it’s like getting blood drawn for me in that the pain is okay but I can’t really watch. And before I knew it, the orange fish looked like shit and for some reason has a black line over its face, and the rest of the area is black. The “light shading” is so fucking dark and thick that you can’t even make the black fish out. It’s sloppy.
People keep trying to console me saying maybe it will look better when it heals, but I’m not really sure how it can. It looks like two dead fish lying on a dead rose. I just don’t understand… clearly the final result is obscenely different from the first two photos.
This guy isn’t an amateur, I’ve seen some of his stuff and it is great. His co-workers kept congratulating him on the “oustanding job,” and how the ripples make it “more interesting.” I just don’t know what I’m going to do. I guess, after it heals, I will go to someone else and ask what he or she can do to fix this mess. I feel embarrassed and humiliated and sick, but mostly angry. I had to fight myself from going back and asking if I was the butt of some kind of joke.
We have a new receptionist where I work. She’s a rather nice looking black woman who is just under 60, but obviously takes good care of herself and has a body she’s not ashamed to show off. And shouldn’t be.
She told me once that she used to date younger guys - guys younger than her 37 year old son. She told me she gave up on them because “they’re too fast.” At first I wasn’t sure exactly what she meant because I forcibly retain my childlike naivete, but further conversations revealed that, apparently, they come too quickly.
TMI.
A couple of weeks ago, I was talking to her about something work-related that I’ll never remember because she cut me off mid-sentence and said, “you know, you’re SEXY.” Oh Sweet Jesus, I think I was a deer in the headlights for about 5 seconds, but then I managed to force a smile and say “thanks!” She followed with “you should shave your head and grow a beard.” My hair is 3mm long on both my scalp and my face - I need to do neither of those things. I told her I didn’t want my head to look upside-down.
Time passed and finally I was comfortable again. Mostly. Until today.
I walked to her desk this afternoon (for something work-related, NATCH), and she looked kind of antsy so I jokingly suggested she was either on caffeine or crack. She showed me her bag of Skittles and we both laughed. She offered them to me, and I politely said “no thanks” and began to walk away.
I didn’t get 2 steps before she said, with a stone-cold, sober, unflinching, unblinking face, “well then what do you want? ’cause I can give you what you want.”
It was happeING!!!! I was being sexually-harassed by a post-menopausal strong black woman and there are no instruction books for dealing with this. I laughed nervously for what felt like three days in the Genesis sense, but was in reality more like 3 seconds. And I turned to walk away and laughingly said “you’re crazy!” and didn’t look back. She laughed.
What I really need right now is for a nice man to hold me tighly while I cry.
Andymatic told me “it’s all this Obamomentum making the black people more forward, we’re post-racial now.” Normally that would make me laugh hysterically but I think I’m too traumatized. I’m known for being a bit of a three-beer-hetero at times, but right now, I just feel… dirty… in the bad way.
One of the local news stations reported on this tonight: A 93 year old woman was found dead in her home in Dallas, on the sofa, covered in a tarp. Her body was in an advanced state of decomposition and had been there from 6 months to a year. The broadcast reported more info than the link provides; apparently her utilities were still on, and her lawn was still regularly manicured.
Neighbors say they’ve seen the woman’s grandson and his friends frequent the house during the last year, and the victim’s mailman told the station that his suspicions were raised when he began delivering a lot of packages and strange mail for a 93 year old woman including magazines about electronics and video games.
It’s obvious what was going on, but I can’t stop imagining how this went down. “Dude, your dead grandma stinks. Let’s go to Starbucks.”
Oh my God. I am going to have a field day with this.
For a little perspective, I also read that a man in Austria held his daughter captive in a windowless cell with a soundproofed door and fathered 7 children with her, and one of them died at birth and he threw it in an incinerator.
Huzzah!
When it rains, it pours. I miss him, too (the one formerly known as Starbucks boy, not the one I picked up at my bank). He’s in San Francisco now, which is apparently where everyone is going. He has no idea I even care. I had it pretty bad for him off and on for a couple of years. I am starting to believe I am wholly incapable of having any kind of relationship at all with other gay men, romantic or otherwise. I have no gay friends at all (current company excluded). True, they do tend to move away from the area shortly after they meet me, but I’m not egotistical enough to blame myself for that.
Having said that, maybe good things are happening..? Someone is waving a heaping tablespoon of quality over my cup of tea and I’ll find out soon whether or not he’s going to stir it in. Isn’t that a ridiculous analogy? Can you stand it? There’s potential news which, if realized, would rapidly facilitate the becoming of my quality. Or at least the perception of my quality. And the side-splitting irony is that the person holding the spoon is The Ex.
He said, “maybe you suffered through knowing me in my younger awful days for a reason!” I said that was to be determined at a later date.
Like sands through the hourglass…
I finally joined a gym last weekend. This weekend I got an all new gym “wardrobe.” I figure by next weekend I might even have actually gone. I don’t know why I’m so nervous about going. I feel very vulnerable letting strangers watch me be a wuss, that’s why I chose a gym that I know is mostly full of fat old white ladies. We can gossip about our husbands and lack thereof and discuss the side effects of the various medications we all take. And then I’ll feel left out because I’ll be the only one not on Xanax and Lipitor. And because they have more stamina.
On another note, this video reminds me of the time that hooker was begging me to let her “entertain” me and I was dying inside because I was too young (26) to know about those things. HBO informs me that hookers come in all shapes, ages and sizes, but this particular one may have been the last one on Earth I might’ve been entertained by. Nevermind the “homemade” tattoo of the swastika on her forehead.
I know a lot of people don’t talk about work on blogs, and the various reasons why are completely understandable. If you haven’t figured it out: I am not one of those people. I’m there 9+ hours per day - it is a big part of my life. The part I’d like to cut out with a rusty saw, but I digress. I’ve decided not to hold back on work stories, and even though I don’t work in fast food or food at all or anything close, I have decided to start referring to my workplace as the Doublemeat Palace*. Because it fits.
No story to tell just now, but I did have yet another run-in (making strong efforts here to avoid any and all puns and double entendre) with Work-twink. He was parked by the backdoor of the Doublemeat Palace awaiting my exit. I tried to run but his fungal powers paralyzed my will (because I’m NICE), and I got stuck talking to him for at least 10 minutes. Finally I said “okayIhavetogonowBYE!” and darted. He was this close <-> to asking me to hang out with him. I’m still recovering.
*this is yet another Buffy reference.
Yesterday I saw my mother and she showed me this book she got at an estate sale for fifty cents (because her biggest thrill in life is a steal, which explains my extreme excitement at finding an unopened season of Angel in a thrift store for $3.94 - it was one of the best things that happened to me in 2006).
Ahem. Anyway, it was a hardcover copy of Stephen King’s Insomnia in immaculate condition. I was flipping through the pages and something fell out - a 10 year old voter registration card. With my mother’s name on it! My mother has a very distinct combination of names, which resulted in me bypassing the heebie jeebies and going straight for the wiggins. I’m convinced it’s some kind of omen.
And there was a note written on the front page: To [My mom's name], from [my best friend's name which is also very unique]. This is weird because my best friend suffers from a rough case of Insomnia and has to alternate her sleeping pills so they don’t lose effectiveness.
In closing, a question: sesame seeds on bread - why?
